The Command to Baptize and Disciple

of the Spirit. It is clear that we received the command not only for baptizing in this way, but also for discipling in this way, just as through this command the Sabellian disease of the three hypostases having been clearly handed down to us was excluded, and the mouths of the Anomoeans, the Arians, and the Pneumatomachi were sealed, making manifest both the persons and the three hypostases, while the nature and the divinity are confessed as one. It is therefore necessary for us to baptize in this way as we were taught, and to believe in this way as we were baptized, and to glorify in this way as we believed.

For, peering through much with the mind and turning everywhere to various thoughts, we are unable to conceive of anything between the creature and the creation; so that if we separate the Spirit from the divinity, it is necessary to count it among the creatures. But if we dare to say it is a creature, how is it possible to be mixed in the baptism? We revile polytheism in this same way as we revile atheism; and we proclaim neither three principles, nor three gods, nor three different natures, but knowing the Father as the beginning of all things, we do not set aside any of the three hypostases, and we bring forward the majesty of the divine Scriptures and the testimonies concerning each one. But since it escapes the measure of a letter to detail these things and your love...